Stable View Academy

WallE, myself and our trusty groom/side kick (Tammie) journeyed to Stable View in Aiken this past Saturday. We left before the crack of dawn at 5:20am. After a two and a half hour drive, we arrived at Stable View right around 8am. This gave us plenty of time to unload the trailer, let WallE have some down time in the stall and a lunge in the field before our school at 9am. 

We tacked up and headed out to the Cross Country field. WallE was a delight. He was very focused and seemed happy to be out and about. There were some very scary jumps, but he managed to go over all the starter fences with little issue and he went over most of the beginner novice fences without a fuss. The show jump schooling round went well and, after a bath, WallE got to rest for the remainder of the day. 

On show day our ride times did not begin until 2:08pm. So we slept in, took many many walks, lunged a little after 1pm and then tacked up for dressage. We practiced dressage all winter. We attended the working equitation clinic, Molly clinics and had exclusively dressage lessons with Laura on the regular. Practice, practice practice. We were NOT going to go in distracted and not consistent. 

We had a long warm up complete with lateral movements within a serpentine from working equitation, counter bend on the circles, leg yields, shoulder ins, haunches in and more from Laura and Molly and more. After 20 minutes WallE felt ready to go, but we were early. We rested and then picked our warm up back up, he was awesome. We rested again and then entered the dressage waiting area. We schooled a bit more and then it was our turn. After all the work this winter and fall, WallE went into a never before seen arena and rocked it. Though we were behind the bit at times, for the most part our test felt wonderful! 

After going back to the barn, WallE got half an apple and an hour long rest before we tacked up for show jump. My lazy side wanted to just warm up in the cross country warm up (beside the barn) and then go to show jump, then straight to cross country. Laura said no - that we need to learn the difference between the careful show jump and the forward cross country. We had a lovely relaxed warm up in the show jump, then had a wonderful and forward round of fences in the arena.

We headed over to the cross country warm up where WallE was level headed and enjoyable to ride. He was also quite forward and knew what he was there to do. We headed to the start box, they counted down and we were off! Jumps one through three went well, then WallE decided he wanted to go back to the barn and be done. After grabbing the grab strap and a short negotiation, WallE proceeded on the cross country course and jumped four and five quite well. He opted to trot through the water and over the scary whale jump before continuing on course. After jump seven we seemed to hit our stride. I even tried to get out of the saddle and gallop - I realized that I need my stirrups shorter for that type of riding. 

We came over the last jump and through the start flags within time and after having a clear round (no refusals). Since June 2021 (after our very first horse trial), my goal list has included 'complete a horse trial on our dressage score' and today I got to check that off as accomplished. Very pleasing weekend with WallE and very rewarding to have worked hard and completed a goal. On to the next!